Individual investors in US private prisons are poised to collect their most lucrative earnings ever thanks to changes in the tax code signed by Donald Trump, continuing what has been a banner year for the industry since the 2016 election.

“It’s going to be great for the investors, banks and hedge funds that own shares in private prisons, and are dependent on increased incarceration and criminalization,” said Jamie Trinkle, campaign and research coordinator with the racial and economic justice coalition Enlace.

Under the new GOP law, investments in so-called “real estate investment trusts” (reits) will see a 25% reduction in tax, from 39.6% down to 29.6%.

Corecivic, formerly Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), and the Geo Group, which together own more than 80% of private prison beds in the US, both restructured as reits in 2013 after a private letter ruling by the Obama Administration IRS green-lit the change.

“This tax act is of unprecedented benefit for reit investors,” said David Miller, a tax partner at Proskauer Rose. “I think reits will explode in popularity as a result of this act.”

With dividends of more than 0m paid out by the two major private prison companies in 2017, in theory, prison investors could see an additional m in dividend earnings next year, thanks to the GOP legislation. The actual figure will be lower than that, however, as some proportion of those shares are owned by institutional investors which are taxed differently from individuals. The exact breakdown between the two is not available in public filings.

Even without the new lower tax rate, the reit classification was already a huge boon to the private prison industry. Before converting to a reit in 2013, Corecivic was subject to a 36% corporate tax rate. After the reorganization, it reported paying an effective tax rate in the first quarter of 2015 of just 3%.

Lauren-Brooke Eisen, an attorney at the Brennan Center for Justice, said: “The way they are able to get away with that, is that they’re not allowed to keep a lot of cash on hand, they have to give it back to investors though dividends. But it allows them to have an incredibly low tax rate.”

According to Eisen, prison companies have essentially argued that renting out cells to the government is the equivalent of charging a tenant rent, thus making such business primarily a real estate venture. In her new book, Inside Private Prisons, Eisen examines the way this classification has boosted industry earnings.

Oregon Democratic senator Ron Wyden, a ranking member on the finance committee, has called the use of the reit structure by prisons “unfair” and “unjust”. In 2016, after being pressed by Enlace, he introduced legislation to end such practices. The bill was reintroduced this year but it has yet to make it out of committee and is not likely to do so any time soon.

A CoreCivic representative told the Guardian that, in their view, “there are far more pressing matters for Congress to pursue” than the reit tax classifications. The Geo Group added they are “treated exactly the same as other real estate investment trusts without any special tax treatments or loopholes”. The point that activists make, though, is that treating prisons as real estate is a loophole.

The announcement only applied to the 18% of federal prisoners held in private facilities, not the 8% of state prisoners or 65% of immigration detainees held in private facilities. But it still signaled serious trouble. Corecivic and the Geo Group saw their stock prices plummet by about half and trading remained cratered until Trump’s surprise election victory.

By February, Trump’s first full month in office, it had become clear that the new administration would discontinue Obama’s efforts to shrink the size of the US prison population. One of Jeff Sessions’ first acts as attorney general was to undo the DoJ directive phasing out private prisons. That month the two companies each reached two-year stock highs.

The tax bill gift to private prison investors mirrors the cosy relationship Trump has had with the industry overall. After years elsewhere, in 2017 the Geo Group hosted its annual leadership conference at the Trump National Doral golf club in Miami. The company also gave nearly half a million dollars to Trump through his inauguration committee and Super Pacs. Shortly thereafter, it secured the administration’s first contract for an immigration detention center, a deal potentially worth millions.

Despite all that momentum, though, Jamie Trinkle at Enlace still sees a potential for organizers to stem the resurgence of private prisons. Divestment campaigns have successfully pulled more than bn out of banks (principally Wells Fargo) and other organizations that invest in the industry.

“Since the tax benefit goes directly to the investors, I think the divestment work actually becomes more important as a way to fight back and stop the flow of capital,” Trinkle said.

This piece was amended on 28 December 2017, to clarify the circumstances under which the Geo Group and Corecivic restructured as reits.

Choosing one of the world’s most famous cartoon characters for a fake driving licence might seem like something only Homer Simpson himself would do, but this week police pulled over a driver who had done just that.

A unidentified male driver was stopped by police in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, this week and presented the officer with the licence, featuring the character from The Simpsons.

The spoof licence came complete with an image of Simpson saying his “D’oh!” catchphrase, a signature and address. Thames Valley police said in a tweet: “The driver’s car was seized and he was reported for driving with no insurance and driving without a proper licence. D’oh!”

Donald Trump’s lawyers are seeking m in damages from Stephanie Clifford, the pornographic actor whose professional name is Stormy Daniels and who claims to have had an affair with the future president in 2006 and 2007.

A lawyer representing Trump attorney Michael Cohen’s company, Essential Consultants, claimed in federal court on Friday that Clifford had violated a non-disclosure agreement as many as 20 times.

Clifford has said she was secretly paid 0,000 to keep quiet. Cohen, who has said he was not reimbursed by the Trump Organization or the Trump campaign for making the payment, has not explained what the payment was for or whether Trump was aware of it.

According to Friday’s filing with the US district court for the central district of California, Cohen now plans to force the dispute from state to federal court and into closed-door arbitration.

Trump has also obtained a restraining order against Clifford.

Clifford’s counsel, Michael Avenatti, said the threat to pursue his client for millions and efforts to force the matter under the cover of anonymity amounted to bullying.

“To put it simply – they want to hide the truth from the American people. We will oppose this effort at every turn,” Avenatti said.

“The fact that a sitting president is pursuing over m in bogus ‘damages’ against a private citizen, who is only trying to tell the public what really happened, is truly remarkable. Likely unprecedented in our history. We are not going away and we will not be intimidated by these threats.”

The latest turn in the dispute trails what promises to be an explosive CBS 60 Minutes’ interview with Clifford, scheduled for broadcast next Sunday.

This week, Avenatti claimed six other women had similar stories to tell, two of whom were similarly under non-disclosure agreements. He also said Clifford had been threatened.

Avenatti has claimed the non-disclosure agreement signed by his client is invalid because Trump failed to sign it too. If the courts determine the NDA is valid, the actor could face a penalty of m for each violation.

The White House press secretary, Sarah Sanders, has rejected the notion that Trump approved the payment to Clifford. The White House has also denied Trump had an affair with Daniels.

Hours before a pedestrian bridge at Florida International University collapsed on Thursday, killing six people, engineers met the construction manager, state transportation officials and university representatives to discuss a crack on the structure.

The Miami-based university detailed the two-hour meeting in a statement released early on Saturday.

It said the session included a technical presentation by Figg Bridge Engineers that “concluded there were no safety concerns and the crack did not compromise the structural integrity of the bridge”.

The meeting ended at 11am. Three hours later, the bridge fell.

The Florida department of transportation (FDot) announced late on Friday that an engineer hired by the university left a voicemail message with the state agency two days before the collapse, seeking to draw attention to the crack.

In the call, which was not picked up until after collapse and has been released to the public, engineer W Denney Pate mentioned “some cracking that’s been observed on the north end” of the bridge but said he did not think it was a safety issue.

The state transportation department also said one of its consultants attended a meeting with the FIU bridge team hours before the collapse. It did not say the crack in the bridge had been discussed.

The National Transportation Safety Board chief investigator, Robert Accetta, said on Friday it was too soon to tell if cracks played a role in the bridge collapse.

“I would have to say that a crack in the bridge does not necessarily mean it’s unsafe,” he said.

University officials have said engineers had performed stress tests to determine the “resiliency of the concrete” in the bridge.

Late on Saturday police said that they believed they had recovered all the bodies of the victims of the collapse. Juan Perez, Miami-Dade police chief, told news media that they had recovered all five bodies of people in vehicles crushed under the bridge. A sixth person died at the hospital.

While police believed all victims had been accounted for, they nevertheless said the search and rescue was continuing.

One victim’s uncle raged against what he called the “complete incompetence” and “colossal failure” that allowed people to drive on the six-lane highway beneath the unfinished concrete span.

“Why they had to build this monstrosity in the first place to get children across the street?” said Joe Smitha, whose niece, Alexa Duran, was crushed. “Then they decided to stress test this bridge while traffic was running underneath it?”

Authorities have not released Duran’s name, but her family has said she died. The FIU freshman was studying political science.

In an emailed statement on Saturday night, the Florida International University president, Mark Rosenberg, said it would hold a moment’s silence for the victims at 1:47pm on Monday – the same time that the bridge went down.